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I’m with you Scout: Numberland

I’m a bad parent. My daughter watches tv. While she watches the shows I cook, and clean, do homework, and write.

“Kat, when was the last time you cooked?” My husband wonders.

Hmm… Okay, so I clean, and do homework, and write. Whatever. TV is bad for kids, no question, but so are unemployed parents, and septic shock. So, she watches tv. Since she’s a toddler, she enjoys watching the same show over and over and over. So I hear them over and over and over. After awhile I start reading into the shows WAY too much, and narrating with a very sarcastic voice in my head. So why not use my blog as an outlet for this voice.

Before I begin, I want to be perfectly clear. Despite anything I may say about any shows I blog about, I love them and recommend you buy them. My daughter has learned so much from these shows, and she gets endless joy from them.

Today I had a particularly productive day because of the leapfrog show Numberland. Bella is sick, do she doesn’t want to do anything but cuddle up with her blanket and watch Numberland. Over and over and over.

She woke up extra early because she coughed herself awake :( The doctor says it’s just allergies, but she’s miserable. Since she was up, I was up. I cleaned the whole house, cooked dinner for my friend that just had a baby–

“Wait a minute! You’re cooking for other people?”

“I made enough for us too.”

I also made cupcakes because it’s two of my friends birthdays. I wrote a scene for my book, did some edits, finished my homework, and interrupted Numberland long enough to take Bella on a run, ran some errands, and the list could go on forever. A very proactive day.

In any case the soundtrack to my day was this movie.

Numberland starts with a gopher destroying a garden. It knocks down all the signs and knocks over the seed basket. Violet and Scout come outside all ready to plant Mr. Rabbits garden. Where is Mr. Rabbit? No clue, he doesn’t make an appearance the whole movie. Nice set up, stick some signs in the ground and make the neighborhood kids do all your gardening.

Scout and Violet, two puppies, see the mess and are all like “WTF happened here?”
They’re soon joined by their friends Penny a hamster, and Eli a frady cat.

Penny: “Was it a hurricane?”
Eli: “OMG!!! I’m s..s… Scared of those things.”
Violet: *rolls eyes* yup, it was a hurricane. We just didn’t notice it blowing through here. Lucky for us it only hit this garden. Or maybe it was that guy. *points at gopher*
Gopher: *pops up*
Scout: WTF man?
Gopher: vanishes

The gang commiserate some more before Scout decides they should go to Numberland so they can learn to count and plant the garden. See they need to know how many seeds go in each hole so they can plant the garden.

Violet: But Scout, your mental image of the garden showed all kinds of plants. All these seeds look the same. What does it matter how many seeds go in each hole if we don’t know which seed is which?

Scout: *quickly takes Violet to the side* Shut up Violet, you know I’ve been dying to check out Numberland. Would you rather go have fun, or plant old man rabbits garden all day!

Violet: oh!!! Yeah, but… *glances back at the cat and the hamster who are trying really hard to count to 3* why are we bringing them again?”

Scout: Snacks?

Resolved, the group sets off in their magical self driving car through the cosmos. After going through some sort of weird time warp, they pop out in Numberland. Numbers are hanging in trees, floating in the sky, and painted into the background. Some of the numbers seem to be sentient beings. Confusing, but the animals don’t seem very surprised.

While the group is exploring they strike up a conversation with a shady looking character on the side of the road.

“hold up scout, that shady looking guy needs a ride. Let’s bring him with us.” Penny says. “The more the merrier.”

At this point I pause the DVD and have a long talk with my daughter about the dangers of hitchhiking.

Unfortunately she’s two. So I think all she got out of it was “Look mommy, max the monkey ride in the car. Good friends.
*headdesk*

Max leads them to a broken down bus, and starts whining about how he can’t fix it.

“We can help!” Penny says, volunteering the entire group.

“I want to go explore Numberland,” Scout complains

Violet: “Shut up scout, we’re helping.”

Max: “Let’s start by getting everyone’s luggage together. For some reason I dumped it all out into the pile. Hey guys! Help me repack your bags.”

Number children pile off the bus and stare at their luggage in horror.

Violet: “You left children… On a bus…. Alone… While you hitchhiked into town?”

Max: Well yeah. See I was in a rush to get the bus fixed because today is a very special day. It’s my–”

Scout: Dude, we said we would help, not that we would sit around and chat all day. Let’s get to work guys!

The group then rifles through everyone’s luggage, trying to match everyone’s belongings to their suitcase. Why the number children can’t help, I don’t know. This prompts the most annoying song over. The lyrics between every line are “didididididi!”

But even the most annoying song ever is cute when Bella sings it.

The group finishes up, everyone thanks them, they get a picture taken and it looks Like the movie is coming to a close. But….

Scout: great! All done, let’s go explore!

Violet: Sweet

Eli: alright! Penny?

*group looks around* Penny?

Penny: *talking to number children* What are you guys up to today?

Numberchild: well… We were going to have a surprise party for a friend–

Penny: I love parties! *dances annoyingly*

Whole group: Penny! douche jar!

(sorry, had to throw a new girl reference in there somewhere)

Penny: *puts money in the douche jar* sorry…

Numberchild: *long-suffering sigh* yeah, it was going to be real fun, but with the delay on the bus I don’t think we have enough time

Penny: We can help!

Scout: *pounces toward Penny with a growl*

Violet intercepts: Hey you wanted to bring them!

Scout: Fine! But that monkey is helping!

Max: Well… I was kind of happy to be off, see today is my–

Scout: See you’re doing that talking thing again when you should be working.

The group helps set up for the party with more songs, and surprise! The party is for Max! Apparently the number children thought the best way for him to spend his party was to drive them to the park, and do manual labor.

Scout: *seething* so not only did I not get to explore Numberland at all, this whole time because your bus broke down and you went nuts on the luggage, but I still didn’t explore this afternoon because I was setting up a party for you?

Max: I tried to tell you it was my birthday like 50 times.

The group returns home, and then tops off their day of helpfulness by planting a garden for the still missing Mr. Rabbit. To speed things up, they count by two. Penny gets pissed when she realizes the crops won’t grow instantly, but I think it’s for the best. They still never found a way to figure out which seeds are which, so who knows what kind of weird hybrids they’re going to get when the plants bloom. Mr. Rabbit is going to get pissed, but hey, maybe next time he won’t exploit child labor.

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2 thoughts on “I’m with you Scout: Numberland”

I’m not sure how I came across this but I have no regrets. This was hilarious and it was comforting to know I am not the only one who plays out kids shows like this in my head. Penny, is indeed very annoying, Emo Eli should not even be with the group. The whole scout pulling violet aside was just hilarious, & yes, Max was very sketchy looking (10 monkey years my @$$!!) . I agree, my one year old makes these songs cute when he sings along, thank you for the great read.